Fourtii to benjamin benoit



UNITED STATES PATENT rrrcn.

HENRY R. BRISSETT, OF LOWVELL, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR OF ONE- FOURTII TO BENJAMIN BENOIT, OF SAME PLACE.

ARTIFICIAL FUEL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 584,104, dated June 8, 1897.

Application filed October 28, 1896. Serial No. 610,311. (No specimens.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY RUPERT'BRIS- SETT, of Lowell, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented or discovered a new and useful Improvement in Artificial Fuels and the Process of Preparing the Same, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to artificial fuel and the process of preparing the same; and it consistsiu certain novel features of manipulation and combinations of ingredients, which will be readily understood by reference to the description hereinafter given and to the claims hereto appended, and in which my invention is clearly pointed out.

The object of my invention is the utilization of crude petroleum as a fuel for use in' steam-boilers, heating-furnaces, and stoves without the objectionable features that attend its use as a fuel in aliquid state, and to this end I solidify the crude petroleum in the following manner: I take about equal parts of rosin and crude paraffiin and melt them together and then allow them to cool to a temperature of about 130 Fahrenheit, when I stir the mass of combined rosin and paraffin into about three times the quantity, by bulk, of cold crude petroleum, which results in the petroleum losing its native fluidity and its penetrating and insinuating nature and becoming a solid, perfectly locked up, and yet the product, taken as a Whole, is a hydrocarbon. It is very desirable that the combined rosin and paraffin should be mixed with the crude petroleum while the latter is in a cold state, for the reason that every time petroleum is heated it loses one or more gaseous constituents, and thereby has the intensity of its heat-giving properties diminished. Now, since all hydrocarbons have the same property of melting more rapidly than they burn, this solidified petroleum, though solid enough, must be provided with a binding or holding material, which, for want of a better name, 1 term a wick, in order that it may be completcly burned without melting and running to waste. This wick may be any vegetable fiber-as peat, dry mosses, cotton-waste, ropewalk waste, disintegrated wood, pulverized tanbark, either exhausted or not, and numerone other absorbent substances that locality or convenience may suggest. All these named substances give but two per cent. of ash, while coal often gives thirty per cent. The relative quantity of the wick that should be added to a given quantity of the solidified petroleum will vary somewhat, according to the kind of waste material that is used for the purpose, but will be approximately about twice the relative bulk. The solidified petroleum and the wick substance are mixed in a grinding-mill similar to the ordinary pugmill, and then pressed into cubes'or bricks of different sizes, according to the uses to which they are to be applied.

I prefer to press the fuel into cubes of three sizes, as follows: No. 1, one-inch cubes for ordinary kitchen-ranges; No. 2, two-inch cubes for large heaters, and No. 3 three-andoue-half-inch cubes for all large steam-boilers, Whether in factories or ships, and also for locomotives. While the substances are being mixed together in the pug-mill, I add a quantity of quicklimesay about one-half pound of the lime to a fifty-pound batch of the mixturefor the purpose of destroying all offensive odors that these substances usually give off during combustion and that would otherwise render the air of a city or other place where crude petroleum was used as a fuel highly unsanitary as well as obnoxious to the residents in the vicinity, and would be very likely to result in an order from the board of health to discontinue its use. These cubes or bricks maybe very densely pressed, so as to occupy a small space as compared with a quantity of coal having the same heating capacity. They will not absorb water, and stand the heat of the suns rays well when exposed in yards or on wharves, as also the temperature of hot boiler-rooms, stoke-pits, disc, and one ton of this fuel is equal in heating qualities to from two to five tons of ordinary coal. This solidified petroleum fuel will be invaluable in the pottery business for stokiug-kilns, where the sulfur contained in coal is a source of great annoyance and loss, and the same principle and for the same reason would be the thing par excellence in fine steel making, since solidified petroleum contains no sulfur. The use of the rosin is a great advantage on account of its being very refractory to heat and consequently its melting-point being high and its being a great oxidizer or is easily oxidized itself, so that a petroleum cube or brick maintains its shape during combustion.

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States, is-

1. As a new composition of matter, crude petroleum, rosin, crude parafiin and Vegetable fiber mixed in about the proportions specified.

2. As a new composition of matter, crude petroleum, rosin, crude paraffin, vegetable fiber and quicklime mixed in about the proportions described.

3. The process of producing an artificial f u el-brick which consists in melting together about equal quantities in bulk of rosin and crude paraflin, allowing the melted mass to cool to a temperature of about 130 Fahrenheit, then stirring the mixture into about three times the quantity by bulk of crude petroleum in a cold state, thereby solidifying the petroleuimthen grinding and thoroughly mixing the solidified petroleum with about twice the quantity by bulk of any suitable Vegetable fiber, and then pressing the material in cubes or bricks.

4. The process of producing an artificial fuel-brick which consists in mcltin g together about equal quantities by bulk of rosin and crude paraffin, and thoroughly agitating the same to mix them, allowing the mixture to cool to a temperature of about 130 Fahrenheit, then stirring said mixture into about three times the quantity, by bulk, of crude petroleum in a cold state, thereby solidifying the petroleum, then grinding and thoroughly mixing the solidified petroleum with twice the quantity by bulk of any suitable Vegetable fiber and a trace of quicklime, and then pressing the material into cubes or bricks.

5. The process of solidifying petroleum which consists in melting together and thoroughly mixing about equal quantities by bulk of rosin and crude paraffin, allowing the mixture to cool to a temperature of about 130 Fahrenheit and then stirring said mixture into about three times the quantity, by bulk, of petroleum in a cold. state.

In testimony whereof I have signed my 5 name to this specification, in the presence of two subscribing Witnesses, on this 27th day of October, A. D. 1896.

HENRY R. BRISSET".

\Vitn esses N. C. LoMBARn, GEORGE H. BROWN. 

